Originally posted by GypsyComet:
I'll echo these comments, with the additional comment that these still need to be accompanied by the simpler style of straight deckplan.
They serve two different functions. Clean, B&W, line drawn deck plans (and I favor the very good deck plans that DGP used to put out over the simple graph paper style we typically see in Traveller) over a grid are needed for game play.
The fully rendered 3-D pics are beneficial for what I call "imagination boosters". They can make a universe so "real" when the GM holds up a cool shot and says, "THIS is what you see."
Players play off of that.
I used a neat 3-D pick like what I've shown earlier in this thread in a game once (as an example) when my players were attempting to force open a locked airlock.
They were inside the ship, trying to get into the airlock compartment. I happened to have a 3-D rendering I'd printed off the net in my GM's notebook.
I laid it out before them. Someone said, "Well, there's got to be a mechanical back-up system in case the ship's power goes out."
I looked that the 3-D drawing and ran with it, "See this compartment to the right of the airlock door near the deck?" I pointed to a clearly drawn access port on the 3-D drawing, speaking the ship's engineer. "This is where you have access that mechanical back-up system."
From there, I just ad-libbed what he saw--I had a car jack in mind and made it a little "spacey"--and had to do to get the lock open. We made some die rolls, and this turned out to be a very memorable encounter of our gameing session--so much that I'm recounting it here.
Could I have made that up all on my own? Sure. Easy. No problem.
But, did the 3-D drawing I have
enhance my game?
It sure did. It put my players right "there" in the story. They had a clear picture in their minds of what it was like going about that task.
And, we ended up taking a mundane task and turning it into the highlight of the gaming session. Had I not had the pic to make the encounter "cool", I probably wouldn't have spent as much time in the game getting that airlock open. It probably would have been a little dialogue with the players, a die roll or two, and we move on.
But, since I did have the pic, I took the time to draw my players even farther into the "universe", inviting them to experience what their characters were experiencing.
The return for the time spent on that was brought back to me in spades. Like I said, it was the highlight of that particular gaming sessions.
All because we had a cool space pic of an airlock to use.
So, I'm a big believer in having these type of "play aids" in rpg materials.
If they're drawn well, they can really add to a game.
